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US Fertility Rates Are Collapsing Across The Country, And No One Knows Who to Blame

As 2017 drew to a close, House Speaker Paul D.
Ryan (R-Wis.) urged Americans to have more children.

To keep the country great, he said, we're
"going to need more people."

"I did my part," the father of three
declared.

Ryan's remarks drew some eye rolls at the
time, but as new data about the country's collapsing fertility rates has
emerged, concern has deepened over what's causing the changes, whether it
constitutes a crisis that will fundamentally change the demographic trajectory
of the country — and what should be done about it.

Women are now having fewer babies and at older
ages than in the past three decades, a change that the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported
this year, and which was confirmed this week with the release of additional
data that shows that the trend holds across races and for urban and rural
areas.

The CDC said Wednesday that the total
fertility rate — a theoretical figure that estimates the number of births a
woman will have in her lifetime — fell by 18 percent from 2007 to 2017 in large
metropolitan areas, 16 percent in smaller metro areas and 12 percent in rural
areas.

A similar downward trend holds for white,
black and Hispanic women.

From 2007 through 2017, total fertility rates
declined for each urbanization level, but differences between rural and metro
counties widened.

Fertility and birthrates are among the most
closely monitored indicators of a country's economic health. When too high, a
surging youth population might be unable to find work and become susceptible to
unrest.

When too low, economies can rapidly contract,
and a small working-age population has to support a large retired population.

The United States is somewhat more buffered
because of its relatively high levels of immigration, but if the decline in
fertility continues, demographers say, the country may face an extreme
population imbalance in the future.

Theories — social, economic, scientific,
environmental — about why fertility is falling so sharply in the United States
abound. Many agree that cultural shifts, such as women getting married later
and focusing on education or work, play a big role.

But there's considerable debate, some of it
more political than evidence-based, about other possible causes.

Human Life International, a missionary group,
blames "pro-abortion population control groups like Planned
Parenthood."

Tucker Carlson claims it has to do with
immigration, arguing that immigrants drive wages down, which hurts the
attractiveness of men as potential spouses — "thus reducing
fertility."

Some have even wondered whether the decline
might be influenced by sperm quality.

Recent medical journal publications have
indicated that exposure to pollutants might be harming reproductive health,
including the motility and quantity of sperm, which could delay childbearing
and overall fertility.

The University of Pennsylvania's Hans-Peter
Kohler, who studies fertility and birthrates, said the data indicated that many
shifts affecting fertility are occurring "in the transition to
adulthood."

The biggest recent drops in birthrate have
been among teenagers as well as people in their 20s. In 2016, the teen
birthrate hit at an all-time low after peaking in 1991.

"The declining total fertility rates are
children not born in the moment, but the hope is that they are delayed, not
forgone," Kohler said.

"The exact details we won't know until
the young adults who are currently delaying having children are in their 30s or
40s."

William H. Frey, a demographer with the
Brookings Institution, said that what struck him about the new report is the
figures on Hispanic women, who have traditionally had high fertility rates.

From 2007 to 2017, Hispanic women experienced
a 26 percent drop in fertility rates in rural areas, a 29 percent drop in
smaller metro areas and a 30 percent decline in large metro areas.

He said the fertility rates for Hispanic women
in urban areas are now below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 children
per woman, which would keep the population stable.

"They may be following the same pattern
as the rest of the population," Frey said, an important finding that
should figure into the debate over immigration.

John Rowe, a professor of health policy and
aging at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, predicts that
fertility rates will drop even lower in the coming years.

He said he thinks the country should be ready
to deal with the impact on Social Security and the workforce but that he does
not believe there's reason to panic.

He said that some other wealthy countries,
such as Japan and Germany, are grappling with low fertility rates, and there's
a lot to learn about how they have managed their smaller workforce to maintain
high productivity.

"The emphasis should not just be on the
number of people but their productivity. So we have to invest in education to
enhance the productivity of younger individuals to compensate for reduction in
numbers," Rowe said.

Wages overall have remained at levels that are low, with little hope for increase. People increasingly feel that although they might like to have more children, they can't afford to. College costs are also discouraging people to have more children, and even frightening them about what they will be able to provide for the children they already have. Lack of health insurance works the same way.

It would be interesting to see whether there are differences across income levels.

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